Strategic Discipline Blog

Successful business leaders seldom have all the answers. That’s the lesson from What to Ask the Person in the Mirror: Critical Questions for Becoming a More Effective Leader and Reaching Your Potential, by Harvard Professor Robert Steven Kaplan.

Kaplan suggests, "90 percent of the battle is being able to step back and take the time to ask the right questions—questions that help you figure out how to gain insight, regroup, and move forward."

The key difference, Kaplan believes, between those who reach their potential and those who don’t, is how they deal with these periods of confusion and uncertainty.

The trick lies not in avoiding these difficult periods; it's knowing how to step back, diagnose, regroup, and move forward.

Kaplan stresses, that successful business leaders seldom have all the answers.

My Experience

In my 26 years in business coaching, my experience would suggest Kaplan is spot on! Michael Gerber’s insightful The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It, suggested owners/entrepreneurs were stuck in “doing it, doing it, doing it” mode.

Many of us feel reward and self-worth in “doing!”  Me included. Without this action, we feel worthless, or less accomplished. The activity of self-awareness, reflection, and sometimes even vacation, can make us feel restless, uncomfortable, and possibly even stir crazy.

What to Ask the Person in the Mirror: Critical Questions for Becoming a More Effective Leader and Reaching Your Potential, is perhaps one of the best books to read, explore, and practice to make yourself a better leader. A shoutout to Ted Bonel, my accountability partner in Australia for reminding me to reread it.

“Doing it” can be an obsession. Being busy is often an addiction. Solving everyone’s problems can be an addiction as well. It feeds a high we get from being important and using our experience and knowledge to solve things. If you need help on this read Tired of Questions – Leadership Discipline.

Solving problems in your company is not a recipe for success. Not having people in your organization to do this reflects on your leadership skills. If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room!

Asking the right questions requires taking the time to reflect. More importantly, it’s exactly what you need your leadership team to be good at as well.

Example

One of my former customers is a great example of this. I’d worked with him on and off for several years. We’ve had some success for a limited period of engagements, yet never the success he or I would envision. He faces several challenges with his business, including two brothers close to retirement who do not share the same vision, growth-minded approach, or self-development appetite.

He is continually in fix-it mode. He often would miss meetings, show up late, and frequently take calls during our meetings. Time management was something he felt he couldn’t control. He would often say, “Doug, I’m a smart guy, I am not any less intelligent than the successful people I see around me, why can’t I do this?”

Self-reflection and evaluation were not a high priority, nor was taking the time to “step back and take the time to ask the right questions—questions that help you figure out how to gain insight, regroup, and move forward,” as Kaplan suggests.

Abraham Lincoln said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax.”

An ax is a strength multiplier. You can be the strongest lumberjack in the world, but with a dull axe, you are in trouble!

Sometimes the problem isn’t our intelligence, experience, or responsibility, it’s recognizing we need to change.

It’s the joke, “Why do you keep banging your head against the wall?”

“Because you feel good when I stop!”

Not everyone is coachable.

What’s surprising is how good we are at solving others’ problems!

Because we can see them without our emotions and blinders!

For the next several blogs I’ll explore Kaplan’s work, sharing his insights and tying each of these to the tools and resources provided by Scaling Up, and Metronomics.

What to Ask the Person in the Mirror

Here are the topics ahead for the next several blog posts.

• Vision and priorities.
• Managing your time
• Giving and getting feedback
• Succession planning and delegation
• Evaluation and Alignment
• The leader as Role model
• Reaching your potential

Please step back and ask the right questions. Ask questions to help you figure out how to gain insight, regroup, and move forward. I’ll be sharing Kaplan’s questions to help you do just that!

This is the primary role of a business coach. Ask the right questions. Teach you how to ask and coach your team to ask the right questions. Join me!

To create an environment where everyone is inspired to give their best, contact Positioning Systems to schedule a free exploratory meeting.

Let’s help you to turn your business into a growth organization!  

Growth demands Strategic Discipline.

It’s surprising how many business leaders fail to create a vision for their business. Sometimes it’s incomplete. Many times, they never get started. Next blog we explore Vision and Priorities from What to Ask the Person in the Mirror.

Building an enduring great organization requires disciplined people, disciplined thought, disciplined action, superior results, producing a distinctive impact on the world.

Discipline sustains momentum, over a long period of time, laying the foundations for lasting endurance.

A winning habit starts with 3 Strategic Disciplines: Priority, Metrics, and Meeting Rhythms.   Forecasting, accountability, individual, and team performance improve dramatically.

Meeting Rhythms achieve a disciplined focus on performance metrics to drive growth.

Let Positioning Systems help your business achieve these outcomes on the Four most Important Decisions your business faces:

Positioning Systems helps mid-sized ($5M - $500M+) businesses Scale-UP. We align your business to focus on Your One Thing! Contact dwick@positioningsystems.com to Scale Up your business! Take our Four Decisions Needs Assessment to discover how your business measures against other Scaled Up companies. We’ll contact you.

NEXT BLOG – Vision & Priorities - What to Ask the Person in the Mirror